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Africa: Conflict Diamonds, 1
Africa: Conflict Diamonds, 1
Date distributed (ymd): 000714
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +economy/development+ +security/peace+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains a press release and a letter from 58 U.S.
organizations calling for the international diamond industry to
develop effective controls to bar commerce in "conflict diamonds."
It also contains a press release from Global Witness also addressed
to the World Diamond Congress meeting on July 17. A related
posting today contains excerpts from the June Global Witness report
on diamond certification, and references to other sources.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
July 13, 2000
Physicians for Human Rights
CONTACT:
Nathaniel Raymond, Media/Public Affairs Coordinator
w) [617] 695-0041, ext.220 h) [617] 623-4249
email: [email protected]
Barbara Ayotte, Director of Communications
w) [617] 695-0041, ext. 210 h) [617] 536-1069
email: [email protected]
U.S. Civil Society Calls Upon Diamond Industry to Boycott
Conflict Diamonds
In anticipation of next week's meeting of the World Diamond
Congress in Antwerp, Belgium, a coalition of 58 American human
rights, humanitarian, development, peace, academic, and
religious groups, released a letter today calling on the
international diamond industry to cease dealing "conflict
diamonds." Conflict diamonds are primary sources of revenue for
abusive insurgent armies in Africa, the most prominent
diamond-reliant groups being the Revolutionary United Front
(RUF) in Sierra Leone and Angola's Unita rebels.
The coalition is urging the industry to quickly establish a
system for certifying legitimate diamonds, and to announce an
immediate prohibition on the buying, cutting, and exporting of
diamonds originating in rebel-controlled Sierra Leone,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola and on the
countries that transship them. These gemstones are often
transshipped through Liberia, Zimbabwe, Togo, Burkina Faso, and
the Ivory Coast. Liberia's role in laundering Sierra Leone
rebel-controlled diamonds has been crucial to the formation and
arming of the brutal insurgent movement.
The United Nations has issued an embargo on trade with
rebel-controlled diamonds in Angola and Sierra Leone. But
without a global system of documenting and certification of
government of extraction, there is no way to know whether the UN
embargo is being violated or not.
At the upcoming meeting of the World Diamond Congress, delegates
plan to discuss several proposed actions aimed at reducing the
trade in conflict diamonds. Until recently, the diamond
industry has publicly denied having the ability to control the
trade in diamonds originating in Sierra Leone and Angola. But
a growing movement in Europe and the United States opposing the
sale of African conflict diamonds has prompted the diamond
industry to respond to calls for reform. De Beers, the Diamond
High Council, the Israeli Diamond Exchange, and India have
threatened to ban any member from the World Diamond Congress
that knowingly trades in diamonds obtained from Africa's rebel
groups.
"Though we welcome the diamond industry's willingness to discuss
this subject, chronic human rights abusers in Africa continue to
buy arms with proceeds from the sale of conflict diamonds. We
urge the industry to take even bolder steps to stop the trade in
these gemstones by imposing an immediate and binding prohibition
on the entry of diamonds from RUF-controlled Sierra Leone, and
Unita-controlled Angola into all cutting and export centers,"
said Holly Burkhalter, Advocacy Director at Physicians for Human
Rights. She added, "Those who trade with the RUF and Unita,
including the governments of Liberia, Togo, Burkina Faso,
Zimbabwe, and Cote d'Ivoire, should be denied access to
legitimate markets."
The coalition letter notes that concerned American consumers are
not able to exercise ethical choices when buying diamonds
because of the industry's failure to support and maintain a
comprehensive, forgery-proof system for identifying, marking,
and certifying the country of origin for the diamonds it buys,
cuts, and exports. The American groups are not threatening a
total boycott of diamonds because of concerns that the
legitimate diamond industry crucial to the economies of South
Africa, Botswana, and Namibia would be affected.
Physicians for Human Rights is forming an American campaign
against conflict diamonds in response to atrocities committed by
the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone against
non-combatants. In March, the Boston-based medical group carried
out an investigation of rape and sexual violence in Sierra
Leone, and for the past year has led a coalition of American
non-governmental organizations supporting both peace efforts and
the protection of human rights in Sierra Leone.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) mobilizes the health
professions and enlists the general public to protect and
promote the human rights of all people. PHR shared the 1997
Nobel Peace Prize for its role as a founding member of the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Visit
http://www.phrusa.org for more information about PHR and its work.
Open Letter to the World Diamond Congress
July 17, 2000
Antwerp, Belgium
To whom it may concern:
We the undersigned human rights, religious, development,
humanitarian, and consumer organizations call upon the
international diamond industry to announce immediate, practical
measures to end the international trade in conflict diamonds.
We are dismayed that despite clear evidence that international
trade in rebel-controlled diamonds has ignited, fueled, and
sustained cruel conflicts in Sierra Leone, Angola and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, for many years, to date
neither the diamond industry nor diamond importing governments
have taken actions to successfully limit or end that trade.
Notwithstanding the promises of leading companies within the
diamond industries that they do not deal in conflict diamonds,
sales of such diamonds mined in rebel-controlled territory in
Angola, the Congo, and Sierra Leone continue to the present day.
Diamonds from these areas are laundered through such countries
as Liberia, Togo, Zimbabwe, Congo-Kinshasa, Ivory Coast, and
Burkina Faso; and then they are admitted to major cutting and
export centers with few questions asked.
We are deeply concerned that Americans have unwittingly
subsidized violence in Sierra Leone and Angola through their
diamond purchases. According to U.S. State Department sources
and independent experts, smuggled and illicit conflict diamonds
may amount to as much as ten to fifteen percent of the $50
billion worth of diamond jewelry sold internationally every
year. The United States accounts for sixty-five (65) percent of
world diamond jewelry sales, which likely includes a significant
portion of those conflict diamonds on the market. Thus,
American purchases of diamonds provide substantial resources to
insurgent forces which mine and/or steal rough stones, providing
enormous profits to the diamond industry who export, cut, and
sell these conflict diamonds.
Diamond smuggling has permitted the RUF in Sierra Leone and
UNITA in Angola to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for
weapons and equipment, transforming these insurgencies into
formidable fighting forces that have wreaked devastation on
their countries. The human cost of wars fueled by diamonds has
been extraordinarily high: in Sierra Leone 75,000 have been
killed since 1991; in Angola 500,000 have died during the return
to civil war in the past decade.
The thousands of American citizens affiliated with our
organizations will not knowingly subsidize war and violence in
Africa through the purchase of conflict diamonds. Because the
diamond industry has failed to impose any realistic or practical
controls on its own members, failed to support and maintain a
legitimate market that could marginalize the market in conflict
diamonds, and failed to initiate a comprehensive, forgery-proof
system for identifying, marking, and certifying the country of
extraction from which it buys, cuts, and exports, then neither
our members nor anyone else can exercise ethical choices when
buying diamonds.
Important players in the diamond industry have very recently
announced a number of positive steps, including the threat by De
Beers, the Diamond High Council, the Israeli Diamond Exchange,
and India to ban any member who knowingly trades in diamonds
obtained from rebel movements in Africa. We are also aware that
De Beers, which controls upwards of sixty percent of the world
diamond industry, promised in March that all of its stones were
conflict-free. But such threats and promises, while welcome,
are largely symbolic unless the diamond industry, in
collaboration with diamond producing, cutting, exporting, and
importing countries, establishes a transparent, legitimate
system that can force the trade in conflict stones out of
business, or greatly reduce its profits. Such a system will
require a comprehensive, global system of transparency for
establishing origin, legitimate export and import centers,
customs and excise regimen in importing countries, international
inspection of diamond packets, and other measures proposed by
the Working Group on African Diamonds which met in Luanda in
June 2000.
We support the Luanda recommendations and welcome the process
that has been set in motion for an international ministerial
meeting in September. However, the establishment of a
comprehensive global system for the mining, export, manufacture
and sale of legitimate diamonds will take time, and it may well
be years before such a system dries up the flow of money and
weapons to insurgents in Sierra Leone and Angola. But the
diamond industry can take immediate action to deprive rebel
movements of resources by identifying (or marking) diamonds or
packets of diamonds and providing forgery-proof certificates of
origin/legitimacy, without which no stone (or packet of stones)
can be cut, exported, or sold.
The diamond industry has, to date, refused to initiate a system
for assuring the legitimacy of the diamonds it buys, cuts and
exports. It is past time to do so. We call upon the industry
to announce that 1) it will no longer admit rough stones to
cutting or export centers that do not have legitimate,
internationally sanctioned certificates of origin from reputable
diamond producing countries or government-controlled areas
within diamond producing countries. 2) that the industry will
not buy, or admit to exporting or cutting centers any diamonds
or packets of diamonds that originate in the Democratic Republic
of Congo, RUF-controlled Sierra Leone, or UNITA-controlled
Angola or that have been transshipped through Liberia, Togo,
Congo, Burkina Faso, or the Ivory Coast.
These actions could help in the short run, and will indicate the
diamond industry's good faith as a partner in longer-term
actions that are needed. We urge you to announce these measures
at your meeting in Antwerp on July 17.
Sincerely,
Leonard S. Rubenstein Executive Director Physicians for Human
Rights
Serge Duss Director, Public Policy and Government Relations
World Vision
Vicki Ferguson Director of Outreach and Education Africa Policy
Information Center
Gay McDougall Executive Director International Human Rights Law
Group
Beverly Lacayo Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa North
American Province
Reverend Phil Reed Justice and Peace Office Missionaries of
Africa
Erin McCandless Director Cantilevers
Edward W. Stowe Legislative Secretary Friends Committee on
National Legislation
Alan Graham Chief Executive Officer Air Serve International
Stephen G. Price, Director Office of Justice and Peace Society
of African Missions
Daniel Hoffman, Africa Executive Africa Office, Global
Ministries United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ
Nina Bang-Jensen Director Center for International Justice
Larry Goodwin Executive Director Africa Faith and Justice
Network
Daniel Volman Director Africa Research Project
Ezekiel Pajibo Facilitator Advocacy Network for Africa (ADNA)
The Africa Fund
United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR)
Jennifer A. Stewart Manager, Product/Program Development
Citizens Development Corps
Charmain Gooch, Director Alex Yearsley, Campaigner Global
Witness
Africa Office of Global Ministries United Church of
Christ/Disciples of Christ Daniel Hoffman, Area Executive for
Africa
Leon P. Spencer Executive Director Washington Office on Africa
Merle Bowen and WIlliam Martin Co-Chairs Association of
Concerned Africa Scholars
Gail R. Carson Director Relief and Food Security Programs
David Mozer Chairperson Washington State Africa Network
American Committee on Africa
Roney A. Heinz International Director Canaan Christians
Fellowship Fund
William Goodfellow Executive Director Center for International
Policy
Peter Vandermeulen Paul Kortenhoven Christian Reform Church of
North America
Abdul Lamin Coalition for Democracy in Sierra Leone
Rob Williams International Development Manager Concern Worldwide
- U.S.
Margaret Zeigler Deputy Director Congressional Hunger Center
Stanley W. Hoise Chief Executive Officer Counterpart
International, Inc.
John Kvcij Chairman of the Board Friends of Liberia
Billie Day Friends of Sierra Leone
Loretta Bondi Advocacy Director of the Arms and Conflict Program
The Fund for Peace
Lynn Sauls International Aid
Kakuna Kerina, Director, Africa Program International League
for Human Rights
Kathryn Wolford President Lutheran World Relief
Kathleen McNeely Program Associate Maryknoll Office for Global
Concerns
Terry Sawatsky Co-director for Africa Mennonite Central
Committee
Bill Akin Coordinator of Non-Violent Education Programs
Mid-South Peace and Justice Center
Rev. Kevin S. Kanouse, Bishop Rev. Mark B. Herbener, Bishop
Emeritus Northern Texas - Louisiana Synod Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America
Jack Marrkand, Executive Director Partners for Development
Gordon Clark Executive Director Peace Action Education Fund
Lionel Rosenblatt President Refugees International
Cecelia Gugu Vilakazi Editor and Publisher SIMUNYE Newsletter
Maureen Healy Africa Liason Society of St. Ursula
Mark Harrison General Board of Church and Society United
Methodist Church
Susie Johnson Director, Public Policy United Methodist Women
Roger Winter Executive Director U.S. Committee for Refugees
Jeredine Williams West African Women's Crusade for Peace and
Democracy
Mary Diaz Executive Director Women's Commission for Refugee
Women and Children
Meredith Tax, President Women's World Organization for Rights,
Literature and Development (Women's WORLD)
Clive Calver President World Relief
Arne Bergstrom World Relief
Rev. Seamus P. Finn, OMI Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate
Certification or Confrontation
14th July 2000
Stung by international criticism the diamond industry are finally
ceding to the inevitable need for wide ranging and meaningful
reform. At the 29th meeting of the World Diamond Congress in
Antwerp from the 16th to the 19th of July the diamond industry will
be bringing a series of structural reforms intended to safeguard
the reputation of the industry and their product. However there are
worrying signs that the trade are deliberately trying to limit the
extent of these reforms by hiding behind new government regulations
rather than accept as an industry their own responsibility to their
consumers to provide a verifiable way of guaranteeing conflict free
diamonds.
In Antwerp the eyes of the world will be on the diamond trade to
see whether they are serious about reform or are just paying
lip-service to ngo's, governments and consumers at a time when the
integrity of the industry is at stake. Failure to commit to these
reforms will leave human rights organisations with little choice
but to increase the level of public awareness regarding the diamond
trade's failure to provide meaningful guarantees that diamonds are
free from funding conflict in Africa.
In order for the Diamond Congress to be viewed with any form of
success Global Witness are demanding that the International Diamond
Manufacturers Association (IDMA) and the World Federation of
Diamond Bourses (WFDB) commit their members to the following
meaningful and permanent controls, as previously detailed in Global
Witness' June 2000 report, 'Conflict Diamonds: The possibilities
for the identification, certification and control of diamonds.'
- Commit to the establishment of a chain of warranties 'from mine
to finger';
- Ensure that all sectors of the diamond pipeline commit to the
independent verification of such warranties to ensure confidence
that they are not dealing in conflict diamonds;
- All diamond centres to only allow the import, export and
re-export of rough diamonds where the country of extraction is
known and which has a verifiable product audit trail;
- Agree to the establishment of an International Diamond Committee,
consisting of representatives from the diamond industry,
governments and ngo's to monitor such verification and to carry out
other necessary reforms;
- Commit to the implementation of a international certification
system based in national legislation;
- Establish a system of penalties for companies, countries and
individuals that are found guilty of dealing in conflict diamonds;
- The creation of a permanent industry working group;
- Set a realistic timeframe to implement these reforms.
Nearly a full 20 months after the publication by Global Witness of
the report 'A Rough Trade', which brought to international
attention the role that diamonds play in funding several conflicts
in Africa the diamond industry is set for substantial reform. The
governments of diamond producing and importing countries are
committed to legislative reform and have been detailing to the
industry the urgent need for reform from within the trade. It is
imperative that the diamond trade work constructively with all
those concerned with the long term protection of the diamond
industry.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC). APIC provides
accessible information and analysis in order to promote U.S.
and international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of human rights.
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